Elderly should be allowed to die, says leading cardiologist

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People not familiar with death need to realise there is a limit to what doctors can do, Dr Beattie told the BBCGetty Images

Home Staff

Published at 12:01AM, August 1 2014

Hospitals should let more elderly people die to help society accept that we are all mortal, a doctor has said.

James Beattie, a cardiologist, said that hospitals tried to resuscitate too many people who had little chance of recovering because people had not come to terms with death. He was talking to other experts who said people needed to be more open about the way they wanted to die.

“If a person is in hospital, particularly an elderly person, with multiple comorbidities [conditions or diseases], if they have a cardiac arrest it’s a sign they are of decline,” Dr Beattie